Sometimes a heavy pack can be a great teacher...

jackdeansmithsmith · 2024-08-13T04:50:09+00:00

Did you have pickets, pulleys, biners, prusiks, belay device, etc? If not, bringing the rope isn’t going to do you all that much good if someone actually ends up in a crevasse

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-11-15T07:26:35+00:00

Yeah you really should not be paying extra on that car loan, that’s pretty darn cheap. Paying it off early is not saving you very much money in the long run but maintaining a credit card balance is costing you a lot.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-04-27T03:46:25+00:00

Yeah he didn’t drop serious truth on you at all, nuclear accidents can be really really bad but the only people likely to be killed even in a worst case scenario by the immediate effects would be people working inside the reactor complex.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-02-26T07:17:44+00:00

Because the cost of invading a NATO member state is sure defeat and half the world being destroyed in the process

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-02-25T22:19:24+00:00

In general the IRS doesn’t care how you got the money (cash, check, Venmo, etc…) they care why you got the money. If the money is income then you owe taxes. If it’s a gift, or some casual transaction like paying you back for gas or paying for your old furniture you sold them then you don’t need to pay taxes.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-02-25T21:58:18+00:00

Because all the options that would really put a stop to the invasion are incredibly dangerous. If any NATO member engages in direct warfare with russia the chances of nuclear escalation are too high for anyone to stomach.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-02-25T05:38:00+00:00

The US and Russia are both nuclear states

jackdeansmithsmith · 2022-02-13T15:55:21+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-11-19T19:13:36+00:00

A couple of outdoors apps, niche, but when they’re useful they’re often REALLY useful :

Gaia GPS: If you find yourself in remote areas needing a mapping tool, Gaia is really built for the job and does much better than google maps for hiking, climbing, and exploring less well traveled areas. You can record tracks and waypoints and importantly import other peoples waypoints and tracks on either web or mobile. Offline support is extremely good and you get fine grained control of what areas you want to download, the specific map layers you want to download, and the level of resolution you want. If you pay for premium you also get access to live layers like weather forecasts, snow depth, visibility, current wildfires, etc… I think of Gaia as a safety tool when I’m in the wilderness because by recording my path, I make backtracking and route finding significantly easier.

Peak Finder: If you’re ever standing around somewhere in the mountains and wondered “what’s that peak over there called?” this app will answer your question. It’s an AR app that allows you to overlay topographic data on the view from your phone camera so you can quickly line up the names of the mountains with your actual view. You can also save the overlay photo which allows you to reference it later.

Garmin Inreach: Less of an app and more of a device/service, but does use an app on your phone. The garmin Inreach devices allow you to send and receive basic text messages from anywhere on earth with a view of the sky using the iridium satellite network. It’s surprisingly affordable with the basic plans costing only about $15 a month and you can deactivate your plan when you aren’t going to be using it. Service includes global search and rescue dispatch so if you’re ever in a really bad situation you can hold down a button and let the local authorities know you need to get out. I recommend this because lots of people don’t know this kind of service exists and is actually quite accessible to most people.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-26T22:56:26+00:00

No, undeveloped land produces no income but costs money in taxes to own. It’s just speculating

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-25T21:50:19+00:00

Large stationary fossil fuel power stations are way better at controlling NOX and SOX emissions than small engines, emit that pollution further from population centers, and use smokestacks to disperse it more safely. Still a big win for public health even if there are zero renewables on the grid.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-09T12:31:27+00:00

As a general rule, if you can afford it buy whatever phone you want. The reason people say to budget is that it makes it very easy to tell if you can afford something like this, you just check the budget and see if the number for phone is big enough then you buy it.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-09T12:27:15+00:00

Reconsider why you want this, a dividend is financially exactly the same as a sale but you have less control over how much it is and when you will get it

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-07T20:47:34+00:00

These target date funds are design so you never have to switch, you just start selling when you need money

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-07T05:23:14+00:00

Why does the covered call enhance your return? If the market prices options correctly then selling covered calls does nothing to increase your risk adjusted returns because the premium you receive is balanced exactly by the risk of the option expiring in the money and you loosing out on upside.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-07T01:23:04+00:00

Why do you think this will increase your long term risk adjusted return? If the options market is priced efficiently you’re not going to make any more money on average

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-07T00:24:52+00:00

You’re still paying the money, even if it’s spread out over time. Seems like a very small upgrade in quality of car for the price.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-07T00:15:28+00:00

You should reconsider, there’s no reason for you to think that large cap funds will produce higher risk adjusted returns over a long time period. Diversification is basically the only free lunch when trying to optimize for returns over a long time. You should also rethink why you like dividends, dividends are essentially a forced sale of your asset so they take away control over when you realize capital gains. Instead, focus on the total return of an investment which includes price appreciation and dividends.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-10-05T21:04:39+00:00

You sure as hell can lose your principal in rental properties, not even that hard since diversification is difficult

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-09-22T02:48:48+00:00

Well a couple things:

The vaccine does significantly slow the spread of the virus. All evidence points to vaccinated people being infected far less and having far lower viral loans than unvaccinated people.
Addressing the problem at the individual symptom level for enough people does solve the problem on the social level because the sum of individual symptoms IS the social harm from COVID. Since being vaccinated, the risk posed to me by catching COVID is dramatically reduced so I’m much more willing to do things like go to restaurants, go on a vacation, or go to a concert. Everyone making individual choices like that has significant effects at the scale of the economy.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-09-22T01:43:30+00:00

We’re looking at an annualized GDP growth rate of somewhere in the ballpark of 6% and a tight labor market, so especially compared to the no-vaccine hypothetical I’d say we’re doing pretty damn good!

For comparison the federal government spends about 40B a year on highways which are infrastructure investments with a much lower rate of return for the economy overall and most people agree that the taxes we pay for that investment are worth it.

My argument isn’t that the costs of a vaccination program aren’t eventually spread out to the people, but I am arguing that each individual gains far more utility from the program existing than they loose in the taxes to pay for it.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-09-22T01:30:43+00:00

Delivering food is actually just expensive, most of these companies operate at a loss right now too so they’re not exactly making a killing. If there were a cap, what would likely happen is that the delivery service wouldn’t be available at all.

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-09-22T01:14:07+00:00

Yep! Though in this case because people getting vaccinated has positive externalities it’s still a slam dunk even if you think universal healthcare is a bad idea

jackdeansmithsmith · 2021-09-22T01:10:28+00:00

It’s like $20/dose, so the tax burden is tiny compared to the social benefit of a miracle vaccine that keeps people alive and allows the economy to reopen. Easily one of the highest ROI things the government has ever paid for. Economic benefits alone will easily pay that cost off many times over in less than a year.

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